SDGLN

SDGLN spread lies and destroyed our company

San Diego, California

Roman Jimenez has been in the San Diego LGBT community for over a decade. He claims to be a journalist, though he floats from company to company every few years. His background though speaks for itself as he was convicted of stealing roughly 100k in computer equipment from a previous employer and he spent time in jail for that crime. He’s reportedly been involved in much more sinister behavior, but it’s third-party information to me so I won’t share.

Anyway, I was a co-founder of a company called Exusmed (later became known as Positive Mobile Health) in San Diego. We spent two years building our platform. Just before we were to launch he wrote a false hit piece on our CEO, Latham Staples (first name is Andrew but he’s never gone by that), claiming he had misused our company’s funds. Latham had recently gone to the police about his ex, Thomas Guerra, who was purposefully infecting people with HIV, and in return Thomas and his buddies, Lisa Kove, Mary Margaret Finley, Brooke Michelle Sullivan, who were a part of our company teamed up with Roman to write this false piece. The piece was attributed to “anonymous sources” which we all knew was Thomas and his group. None of us were ever asked for comment.

Roman never reached out to our executive team to gather the facts. Our board grew concerned and held two audits, one external from a Fortune 50 CFO, and both showed Latham did nothing wrong. Our chairman of the company, George Schwartz, even offered our financials and partnership agreements (which Roman had also stated didn’t exist), to Roman for his review when he learned of the article. But Roman never showed up to view them. Wouldn’t a true journalist show to get the truth? Our chairman also reached out to the editor (Ken Williams) and the SDGLN publisher (Johnathan Hale, aka John Wycoff or John Hackett (also a convict for theft from his previous employer and for battery - hence the name change), but they let let the piece stand as they two had it out for Latham. Ken since resigned.

What these unethical people don’t realize is that yes, they dramatically hurt Latham, but there were over 50 of us at the company working for the launch. We spent years working on our product. Roman used his ability to write blogs to cause harm instead of reporting factual information. And in return we all lost our work as a Thomas texted the link to the false article to all of our investors and business partners. Everything then collapsed and we all lost money in the equity we had in the company. And for what? So that Roman could further his vendetta against Latham?

Tens of employees, business partners, investors and board members all testified in court, under penalty of perjury, on behalf of Latham. Many of us were questioned by the police and FBI, which made their own determination that there was no wrongdoing within our company. The damage had been done though and Latham and the board the shut the company down. And if that wasn’t enough, they then reached out to another online blogger, Cyrus Farivar of Ars Technica, to further their story and lies. They had him so wound up that he didn’t even bother to fact check the evidence. And when Loralee Gunter (a former member of our company) emailed him the truth, he disregarded it. Here is the actual email which outlines everything: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5005244-Loralee-Gunter.html You don’t have to believe us, but court docs, partnership agreements, financials and the audit don’t lie. Facts are facts. You all should be ashamed of yourselves!

I’ve never witnessed so much evil in my life and what we went through was akin to a crazy movie that is hard to believe when you tell people (there is so much more Thomas and his group did to cause harm, including Latham at one point being told by authorities to wear a bullet proof vest). And I’ve never even met Roman Jimenez, Johnathan Hale and Ken Williams, but I truly believe in karma. And I know that Roman, Johnathan, Ken, Thomas Guerra (who was convicted and sent to jail), Mary Margaret Finley, Brooke Sullivan (another individual who spent time in jail), and Lisa Sue Kove (who committed insurance fraud with a house fire) all have a major dose of bad karma coming their way. Because of your pettiness and vindictiveness you all hurt many, many people. Next time think about all of those who could be hurt by your actions!